Life was small. It was tiny even, so tiny it was hard to see it sometimes. Life curled up to make itself even smaller, to fit into the kinds of holes that insects crawl into to get away from bigger insects. Life was sad. Life didn't want to be an insect. Life was getting backache from the curling up. It wanted to straighten out, stand up tall, shout out to the world. But it had been so long, Life wasn't sure how to.
I sat on the railings and looked out over the sea. Waves churned and the sun cackled from behind the clouds, and my mother, scowling, gripped the rail with both hands, her hat pulled so far down that I couldn't see her eyes.
"Do we have to...?" she said, and the wind took her words and spun them around so that they arrived jumbled. I didn't answer her anyway. She knew that, yes, we did have to. So we waited.
Life started by unfurling one finger. It felt odd, stiff, unnatural. But then good, freeing, sweet. Life tried another finger, and another. A whole hand, then both. Then suddenly, like a balloon, Life burst out of itself. Life grew and grew, out of the hole and into the world and along and up and outwards.
When I saw it, I had to stop myself from grabbing my mother's arm.
"There," I hissed, and took her shoulders and turned her towards the direction it was coming in.
"My god," my mother whispered. "I never thought I..."
We stood in silence, watching it approaching. I knew, the way I've always known about things, ever since I was little, that we were getting out of here tonight. That knowing rose up in me like holiness and light, air and fire. It lifted me out of myself.
"Come on!" I shouted and grabbed our suitcase in one hand and my mother's arm in the other, and pulled her down the steps to the beach, and we ran towards it, through the waves, my mother holding onto her hat, and the boat coming nearer and nearer.
Life bloomed and blossomed and burst through, feeling as if its lungs would explode with the bursting. And finally, when it seemed to Life that it could go no further, there was a pop and a ringing sound, and everything stopped.
We were about to climb into the dinghy. I was helping my mother—she had one foot in the boot, some big guy was hauling her in, and then there was a loud noise. Everything froze. The waves iced up. The wind was gone. I couldn't move anything. But I could see it, all of it. And all I could think was, 'We were so close. So damn close. Couldn't you just let us...?'
Life looked down and saw a tiny boat with tiny people. Life couldn't remember being that small, let alone as minicsule as an insect. Now that Life was all-encompassing, Life had lost all sympathy with anything that wouldn't grow itself to Life's stature. Life blew a little on the tiny boat. Life watched as the tiny boat swayed and tilted, dipped and dove, sank and disappeared. Then Life turned around and got on with something else.
First published in the Mad Hatter's Review http://www.madhattersreview.com/issue10/whatnots_hershman1.shtml
10
favs |
1734 views
15 comments |
574 words
All rights reserved. |
Carol Novack chose to publish this in Mad Hatter's Review in 2007, I think, one of three quite mad pieces, and her choosing it gave me an enormous confidence boost, that someone wanted the weird stuff, the stuff that I wrote just to amuse myself. It meant the world to me. This somehow seems fitting, because Carol always burst with such energy. Thank you, Carol.
This story has no tags.
I feel as if I've been taken to a beach and sucked into a 'life' of restriction, near freedom ... and frustration! And all in 500 words! Brilliant, Tanya! Fave.
Tania, I can see why Carol chose this for MHR. She adores lyrical prose, and this is lyrical, and when a particular story or prose poem or flash fiction defies categorization, she calls it a What Not to acknowledge differing views of those genres. Beautiful use of the abstract in this writing. *
Glorious ...
Well done.*
Took my breath away. Lovely.
A fine piece with wonderful phrasings throughout. Well-written.
Wonderful piece. Another stone for Carol Novack. Thank you, Tania.
Debs, thanks so much for reading!
Carol is getting on with something else as we all sit and watch it approach, watch it unfurl. Great instinct here by Carol to publish this piece, Tania. It's quite good and well worth lifting you out of yourself.
Stunning piece, Tania, really unusual and wonderful.
*
lovely in every way. big love.
ok i have read it twice. two times i am saying i love this. Tania, please be here on Fictionaut more often, it is delightful, a huge gift to read your work.
What a stunning first sentence. "Life was small." And then the beautiful puzzling journey out to sea. Thanks for posting this For Carol. *
wow! great piece.
This is truly a "meta" piece - awareness of awareness - beautifully and lyrically written and a fine, fine tribute....